"With all my heart," cried the Squire. "Dick, bring the cards, and ask Reuben to fry some pilchards. All work and no play, Mr. Mildmay, you know——"
The gentlemen were nothing loth to spend an hour or two in this way. They had supper at eight; the officers then left to attend to their nocturnal duties; and as Mr. Carlyon remained to play piquet with the Squire, Dick went to bed early, resolving to take some independent steps in the morning.
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH
Cross-Currents
Polkerran next day was the stage upon which a series of dramatic incidents were enacted, pure comedy to the spectators, but with a possible tragedy behind the scenes.
At an early hour a mob of boys and girls, with a sprinkling of aged folk verging on second childhood, followed at the heels of Petherick, the constable, as he shambled through the streets, stopping at the corners to ring his bell, shout "Oyez! Oyez!" and mumble the formal words of Mr. Carlyon's proclamation. He pretended to read them from the sheet of double foolscap that he held at arm's length before him, but being perfectly illiterate, he in reality recited them by heart, the Vicar having devoted two solid hours since dawn in drumming them into the man's head. His duty thus religiously performed, Petherick repaired to the tap-room of the Five Pilchards, where he discoursed for a time on habeas corpus, felo de se, and other magical prescriptions, relieving his dryness so frequently with rum-hot that he was at length overcome with emotion, and mingled his liquor with his tears.
Two hours later, Sir Bevil Portharvan rode down with Mr. John Trevanion, a brother magistrate, and a sheriff's officer from Truro, intending to harangue the populace and impress them with the majesty and terror of the law. But finding that no audience gathered about him except the young and old children aforesaid, a few pallid indoor workmen, and a number of women accompanied by squalling infants in arms—the able-bodied men being, curiously enough, otherwise engaged—he abandoned that part of the programme, and contented himself with solemnly superintending the affixing to the inn-door of a bill, headed with the royal arms, which he had ordered overnight to be printed in Truro.
At noon came Mr. Mildmay, Mr. Polwhele, a posse of excisemen, and a soldier on furlough, who, with the authority of a warrant signed by the Vicar, proceeded to make a thorough search of the houses, beginning with the inn itself. They descended to the cellars, ascended to the lofts; rummaged in clothes presses; turned down beds; rapped at walls for hollow sounds indicating secret passages or receptacles; peeped into horse-troughs, cow-byres, and pigsties; poked in coppers and washtubs; in short, worked themselves into a fine perspiring heat and the village folk into an itching frenzy by the conscientious thoroughness of their inquisition. Some of the men who had been undiscoverable by Sir Bevil were now energetically employed, in advance of the search party, in removing bales, kegs, packets, and canisters, so that when Mr. Mildmay appeared at one end of a street, these interesting objects were collected at the other; and when this end in turn was visited, the barefooted carriers of the articles in question slipped back and replaced them in their former hiding-places.
While Mr. Mildmay and his assistants, after three hours' unremitting toil, stood mopping their brows and venting their honest opinion of the Polkerran folk, John Trevanion rode down the hill. He reined up when he reached the group, and greeted the discomfited representatives of the law.
"How d'ye do, gentlemen?" he cried. "Have you had any success?"